Am Mon, 14 Aug 2000 schrieb Scott Grigsby:
snip
> (but this may just be a marketing ploy) getting a phone line "cleaner."
> Apparently, many phone systems in Europe have some sort of tone/noise
> on them (that has something to do with per-minute access charges) that
> may interfere with a modem connection. You may also need an
> international/world modem (but I'm not totally sure) -- something about
> the dial tone and/or the touch-tones used for dialing -- some modems
> only work with the U.S. phone system.
snip
> And I'm sure some of the more well-travelled and French members of
> the mailing list will give you some more solid info.
Hi!
Well, I'm not french but from a smaller neighbouring country, but I think I
can contribute on points two and three of your reply, Scott.
"Phone line cleaners":
Phone lines in western Europe are squeaky clean, thank you very much. In fact,
in France and Germany, most lines starting from the local relay station
(unobtrusive grey boxes standing on the side of the street) are digital. It's
only with ancient upstream telephone lines that you can get any noticeable line
noise. In some hotels (not exactly the budget ones) you get ISDN or Ethernet
on your room.
"Modems that only work with the U.S. phone system":
A modem is a modem is a modem (apologies to Georgia O'Keefe). Unless it's a HSP
modem, then it's crap. I have succesfully used modems imported from the U.S.
here. It's all in the AT sequences, you might want to add a "X3" to the dial
string if you're on a telephone system that gives a tone different fron the
normal "line free" tone.
HTH!
Christoph
--
Random fortune quote:
What the world *really* needs is a good Automatic Bicycle Sharpener.
